Policy for the Public Schools: Compensation and Integration

Abstract

This article is concerned with the implications of research for national policy. As a consequence, the discussion centers upon only a few of the many changes which are generally advocated for urban education. The focus is upon those few basic aspects of urban public education which probably could be reached and fundamentally changed by the relatively limited instruments of national policy. Although they have enormous potential for creativity, these instruments—the law, money,and administrative requirements—also have limitations. The limitations are a good deal more acute in matters of educational opportunity than in, say, voting rights. It is in large part for these intrinsic reasons, and owing to certain historic limitations (we do not have a national school system, and thus cannot have a national policy on curriculum) that policy implications assessed here may seem to some rather narrowly circumscribed. It is not my view that unique programs and personalities, engaged creatively in education under what are often very trying conditions, are not important or significant. They are, and there is much to be learned from them.